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Lady of the Lake / Loktak Lairembee

November 22, 2016

Director: Paban Kumar Haobam / India / 2016 / 71 mins / English

SYNOPSIS Loktak Lake is a unique ecosystem where fishermen lived in huts built on floating biomasses. In 2011 the authorities, in the name of protecting serenity of the ecosystem, burnt down the huts leaving thousands of fishermen homeless. Tomba, one of the victims, lives with a harrowing nightmare of looming displacement since then. He is haunted by seamless fear of further intervention of authorities that would make him homeless forever. Confined in his makeshift hut, Tomba senses the spirit of evil around, while his wife Thambalsang works hard to make their living. One fine morning Tomba accidentally finds a gun hidden within the biomass. He marvels with the gun as his power of self-protection. He transforms himself to an assertive man who is looking for an appropriate offense. One day an old lady who mysteriously wanders in the lake, knocks at his door in the middle of the night. Fearful Tomba, anticipating the lady as the spirit of all evils, chases her and commits an unintended crime.

DIRECTOR’S BIO Haobam Paban Kumar is one of the leading documentary filmmaker of the country. He has a 3 Year Post Graduate Diploma in Direction & Screnplaywriting from Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Kolkata. Haobam came to limelight with the film ‘AFSPA 1958’ winning the International Jury and FIPRESCI award at the 9th Mumbai International Film Festival 2006. The film also won the ‘Swarna Kamal’ for the Best Documentary at the 56th National Film Awards 2008. Some of his other notable films are ‘Ngaihak Lambida’, ‘A cry in the dark’, ‘The first leap’, ‘MR INDIA’, ‘Ruptured Spring’, ‘Nupishabi’ etc. Haobam has 5 National Film Awards and 5 Indian Panorama Selections to his credit. His latest film ‘Phum Shang’ is one of the successful Indian films in recent years sweeping almost all the major awards in the country including the prestigious Golden Conch for the Best Documentary at the 14th Mumbai International Film Festival 2016. The film Loktak Lairembee (Lady of the lake) is his debut fiction feature film.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT Decades of insurgency and socio-political uncertainty have thrown my society into disarray leaving the people to recede into a cocooned existence devoid of any space for free and visible self-expression that evokes compassion and concern for others. Today when I look at my birthplace Manipur, I see guns all around. Gun – a symbol of authority and ownership regimen others… be it the insurgents or the state authorities. We forgot that fear and anxiety instill further worries resulting in cross violence! I sincerely believe in resumption of our cultural values that propagates an inclusive society imbued with love, trust and tolerance and my film symbolically delves into the ‘fear psychosis’ that leads to mistrust and irresponsible conflicts.